kidogo zaidi ya miaka mitatu iliyopita, mke wangu na mimi saini mwanangu kwa ajili ya shughuli ya majira ya joto, The Midland Park Players. This is a drama group that spends about three or four weeks preparing for a play and then showing it to the parents, friends and relatives. It’s always been done very well.

Sijui kama mtoto ya kila mtu ni kama hii, but my son is extremely reluctant to try new things. Knowing this, we signed him up for the program. We’ve found that it’s best to alert him to these kinds of things early and often. Hivyo, ili kuondokana na kusita yake ya asili, sisi alimwambia mapema na alifanya kazi nzuri ya kufanya hivyo sauti kama furaha, nk. Even with a multi-month advertising campaign, he still wasn’t convinced. We forced him to do, ingawa, na kama ni mara nyingi kesi, he had a great time.

Kwa mara ya pili mwaka akavingirisha kote, he had once again convinced himself that he didn’t want to participate. Lakini, sisi alikuwa saini yake juu na juu ya sifuri-siku, I dropped him off one morning at the high school where they practice. When I went to pick him up after lunch, yeye alikuwa msisimko sana, kila smiles na alitangaza, "The play is the Velveteen Sungura and I want to be the Rabbit". He had spent literally months carrying on (wakati mwingine anapagawa) kuhusu jinsi yeye hakutaka kuwa na kitu cha kufanya na Wachezaji Park na baada ya siku ya kwanza, he wants to be the lead role in the play. We’ve seen this pattern before.

(Mengi kwa mshangao wetu, yeye alifanya kupata nafasi Sungura na alikuwa ajabu.)

Fast forward a few years. He’s been in Park Players three times now, so he’s something of a veteran. This summer (2008), Players starts up again. Katika maana wakati, yeye hatimaye wanaamini sisi yeye kweli doesn’t want to play soccer and he never liked basketball. That left him with no extra-curricular activities for late Winter / early Spring. A client with whom I was working mentioned that his daughter was in a program called Stage Right. Stage right is a slightly more expensive version of Park Players and it’s not in my town, but adjacent to it. Perfect.

The thing to know about that town is that it’s practically another country in terms of wealth. It has a high-frequency train right to Wall Street and NYC in general. It’s just a wealthy place. One of the on-going family discussion themes is whether we should have moved to that town instead of where we live now. It’s a bigger town, Shule yake ya kutoa zaidi mipango kwa ajili ya watoto, nk. My wife grew up in that town and her parents live there, so we are "hooked in" despite not living there. I personally grew up in different circumstances in Massachusetts, so I don’t have a lot to say about this during family dinner conversation. This isn’t to say that we aren’t very happy where we live. We just know that that town is a level above our town economically.

Stage Right’s next program started too soon for us to launch our normal advertising campaign to overcome my son’s reluctance. This is when he came up with one my personal favorite arguments against doing something: "Friday nights are mkuu usiku kwa overs usingizi!" Stage Right was going to interfere with his weekend socials.

siku inakuja, sisi kuleta naye huko na kuacha naye mbali na kama kwa kila kitu kingine, upendo wake wa asili ya kuwa tu hai alichukua juu na yeye imekuwa kuwa na wakati mzuri na ni.

Mwishoni mwa wiki hii iliyopita mke wangu mara kuzungumza naye na kwa mara ya kwanza, I think he’s tailoring his discussions very precisely for his audience. She had asked him how Stage Right compares to Midland Park Players. He tells her that "In Park Players, we have teenagers that help us out. There aren’t any in in Stage Right. In Park Players, teenagers make all props. In Stage Right, we have to bring our own props. We have to do everything. And then he twists the knife: "I thought this was supposed to be a rich town."

Miaka yote, I never really thought that he was hearing or understanding anything as it related to the "rich town". Hata hivyo, zinageuka alikuwa.

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